On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook, the great English explorer and navigator, was murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island group.

In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the HMS Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the Pacific area.

In January 1778, Cook made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. He may have been the first European to ever visit the island group.

Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who were fascinated by the Europeans’ ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex. The ships then left and headed north. Almost one year later, Cook’s two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands.

It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods but relations inevitably became strained.

The Hawaiians greeted Cook and his men by hurling rocks, and after an altercation, a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook’s party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but were soon overwhelmed, and Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob.

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